Best Money Saving Tip

[LoveThoseLabbies]

Best way to save money for Disney, get rid of your cell phone. I bet several of you trying to save enough money to get to Disney are running up $50-60/month cell phone bills. Get rid of those little devils, and you and the world will be a better place.

I know, I know, you need them if the car breaks down or to call the DH to tell him you are stuck at the soccer game and to start dinner. Well try the pay as you go plan, perfect for "emergency use". How does $7/month sound versus $50-60? You get about 30 minutes a month, perfect for those little emergencies that pop up, but unfortunately not enough to talk every spare minute of the day. How did we survive without cell phones?

 

[elfbo]

Why not get rid of your land line? For that 60$ a month, i have unlimited weekend and evening calling, free long distance and i have the convience of not having to stay by the phone. This is for the cost of a similar plan where im tied to one location with a landline.

 

[LoveThoseLabbies]

Did you get rid of your land line?

 

[etwinchester]

Cell phone is WAY cheaper for me.

Where I live, everyone is a pay call for me. My normal phone bill was $140 every month.

Now I use my Nextel for 59.99. I have free long distance, free nights & weekends, 800 outgoing minutes a month (some are bonus minutes), and FREE INCOMING. Anyone can call me from anywhere and it doesn't use up my minutes...

Can't beat that...

 

[MagicalMom]

For most of us, a cell phone isn't something we can just get rid of. I know my contract has a cancellation fee of a couple hundred dollars.

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

Originally posted by elfbo
Why not get rid of your land line? For that 60$ a month, i have unlimited weekend and evening calling, free long distance and i have the convience of not having to stay by the phone. This is for the cost of a similar plan where im tied to one location with a landline.

ITA

 

[ThatNiceComputerLady]

We've been cordless (no landline) for over 2 years now. Was paying over $200/month for phone services, now we pay around $100 which includes tons of long distance (esp. on weekends).

 

[HaleyB]

We are considering getting rid of our land line. We did get rid of long distance service and all the other extras. Basic phone service is $35. So we wouldn't save that much. Work just picked up our DSL, so that puts us $49.99 a month closer to our next trip.

DH thinks we should get rid of cabel TV. That is $54 a month. I think my son would be really upset though.

We did buy a really good mower and got rid of our lawn guy. It paid for itself in four months and it takes about 25 minutes to mow and edge the lawn. That saved us $65 a month after the first four months.

 

[diznee25]

Just a quick thought for those thinking about cutting off your land line:

If you own a TiVO a land line is necessary for the TiVO to work. We thought about cutting phone service to our house until we remembered this!

Great money saving tip if you don't own a TiVO.

Diznee25

 

[MrsPete]

I use my cell phone constantly -- I'm not going to get rid of it. However, the concept is a good one. What expenses could you part with easily?

Cable TV
Newspaper delivery (the headline news stories are online anyway)
Health club membership
Sausage biscuits from the drive-through
Fast-food lunches
Sodas from the vending machine (buy in 12 packs and tote them to work)
Magazine subscriptions
Alcoholic drinks
Impulse buys at the grocery store (make a list, stick to it, and watch your bill drop)
Video rentals
Friday night pizza delivery (make your own for less than a buck)

Don't try to do EVERYTHING. Just pick 2-3 "leaks" in your financial ship, and keep track of how much you save.

 

[MI mom of 3]

Originally posted by GAIL HAYDEN
ITA

I thought I knew most of the abbreviations but this one has me stumped. Help me out please???

 

[MomlovesDad]

I've done this one and it save me about $7-$10 a month on my phone bill. I dropped ALL - I mean ALL of my long distance services on my phone. When I called, I told them I didn't want any long distance services. They said, "Okay, we'll drop the carrier, but you'll just be assigned another carrier." I said, "You don't understand, I don't want ANY long distance services on my phone - I don't want to pay the FCC monthly charges anymore, the carrier charges, the taxes, etc." They did, and my bill dropped by at least $10 per month inlcuding all the taxes and everything. The access fee was at least $5 per month, then you had all the other fees tacked on.

Then I bought an ATT prepaid phone card from Sam's. It costs $.03 per minute, no access fees, no taxes except the sales tax you pay for the card. I spent $30 on it in December, and still have over 120 minutes left on my card. This is THE best deal ever, if you don't have long distance included on your cell phone.
You have to dial an 800 # and then your code, but hey, the inconvenience way outweighs the bucks you pay per month.

That's my little tip of the day!
MomlovesDad

 

[floridagirrl2]

Originally posted by MrsPete
I use my cell phone constantly -- I'm not going to get rid of it. However, the concept is a good one. What expenses could you part with easily?


Friday night pizza delivery (make your own for less than a buck)

Less than a buck?? Recipe please!!

We are in a college town, where there's lots of competition among pizza joints, so we can buy a quality, large take-out pizza for around $7.00.

 

[bigbabyblues]

ITA - I Totally Agree


Steph

 

[LoveThoseLabbies]

You can always get these things on Ebay for about $4.00/120 minutes. AT&T, and they never expire if you need long distance. Also great to take on vacations, although I think Disney still charges the dreaded access fee for toll free calls( $.75). It is sure better than getting the bill after making a short (5 minute ) call home to find a charge of up to $10 or more on your bill. Happened to me believe it or not, long ago, 5 minutes Milwaukee to Chicago, $17.

Also, beware of low end phone cards that promise $.01/minute. Read the fine print, they have access charges and you get cut off very regularly. Never a problem for me with AT&T cards.

 

[The Prophet]

What will happen duing the next blackout?
The only thing that worked here during last August's blackout was my landline.
Cell Phones were useless as the towers had no power.
One more thing to consider.

The Prophet

 

[Pink Flamingo]

Oh Dear! Just realized how "thrifty" I am ~
We have a pay as you go cell phone for emergencies ($98 per year, 250 minutes) & land line with no long distance provider (we do just like MomlovesDad said - buy the prepaid phone cards from Sams for .03/minute for long distance calls). Have to have a land line because we don't have cabel & us a 56K modem.
We also do (or don't do depending on how you look at it) all of MrsPete's suggestions.

Happy saving - however you choose to save .

 

[Ozymoe]

Thought I'd add my 2 cents...

We made a conscious decision when our kids were young to NOT subscribe to cable. We do watch PBS (Public Broadcasting System) on channel 12 (we live in Iowa).

Our youngest children are 15, 15(girls) and 16(boy). They are straight A students in high school (okokokok...Joe received a B in German and Elise received a B+ in German this last year) for the most part. They regularly use the internet (although they complain about the slow dial up access). We watch some great programs together on PBS this past year. The twins have followed American Idol with much interest.

Our phone bill is about $19 a month for basic service. We have the option to pay for as much long distance service as we want for $25 a month. (if we use less than $25 worth it is billed at 5 cents a minute...so we pay 5 cents a minute if we use less than 8.3 hours per month...which we have never done since we average 30 hours per month of long distance). These long distance calls can be made at any time of the day or night so it really is a great deal for us!

We do not have cell phones. It works for us and the extra money pays for a lot of things we couldn't afford if we had cell phones. You can make anything work if you want/have to!

 

[Zoesmama03]

Dont own or use a cell phone.

And the dropping long distance cost us a monthly charge where as my carrier has no monthly charge and 5 cents a min. Which IMO is not bad.

I'm cutting out my sodas at work(we don't have a vending machine but we sell 20oz bottles for $1.24) Now if only I can get DH to cut them out. I will have to start packing him a lunch and bottle of water or whatever.

We already use dial up Internet and have no cable. We really are poor. LOL


Our biggest expense sadly is bank fees for overdrawing our account so just budgeting and actually tracking our spending will help us a ton.

 

[Muushka]

Speaking of inexpensive pre-paid cell service, how about this:

Alltell offers their prepaid where the only restriction is that you must make one call per month. One minute only. If you use more, that's fine (at 35 cents per minute). So for people like us who really do only use the cell phone in case of emergincy, it costs only 35 cents a month. If you don't use it for a month they charge $4.00. Still not bad either.